§ The result
Phenom leads Mercor on all 7 criteria.
Rubric v1.0 puts 29 points between Phenom (Sourcing) and Mercor (Screening): 52 for Phenom, 23 for Mercor. Phenom leads every one of the 7 criteria and 3 of them by 20 raw points or more, Bias Audit Transparency among them; Mercor leads none. Bias Audit Transparency is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing — Mercor 10, Phenom 75 — and at an 18% weight it carries 40% of the weighted advantage Phenom holds across the 7 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
Mercor
Mercor is an AI talent platform that runs automated 20-minute AI video interviews and semantic resume/profile matching to vet, score, and place candidates and expert contractors, and offers an enterprise applicant-screening product that scores employers' applicant pools against role rubrics with pass/fail recommendations.
Vendor profile
Phenom
Talent experience platform combining a career site CMS, candidate CRM, internal mobility, and conversational AI for screening and scheduling.
§ The record
Mercor is filed under Screening AI, Phenom under Candidate sourcing AI. They record no secondary category in common.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act and Illinois HB 3773. Only Mercor is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Mercor | Phenom |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | US | US |
| Founded | 2023 | 2010 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 40% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Mercor 10 · Phenom 75
11.7 weighted points to Phenom
20% weight · 62% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Mercor 22 · Phenom 55
6.6 weighted points to Phenom
15% weight · 82% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Mercor 22 · Phenom 60
5.7 weighted points to Phenom
12% weight · 89% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Mercor 42 · Phenom 60
2.2 weighted points to Phenom
12% weight · 93% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Mercor 20 · Phenom 30
1.2 weighted points to Phenom
8% weight · 97% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Mercor 40 · Phenom 55
1.2 weighted points to Phenom
15% weight · 100% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Mercor 20 · Phenom 25
0.8 weighted points to Phenom
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -29.3 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 29.3 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -29 beside that -29.3.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Mercor minus Phenom.
| Category | Weight | Mercor | Phenom | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 22 | 55 | -33 | -6.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 10 | 75 | -65 | -11.7 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 25 | -5 | -0.8 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 22 | 60 | -38 | -5.7 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 60 | -18 | -2.2 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 20 | 30 | -10 | -1.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 55 | -15 | -1.2 |
| Total | 100% | 23 (F) | 52 (F) | -29 | -29.3 |
§ Evidence
Cited sources and documented absences, criterion by criterion.
An absence is a finding, not a blank: the reviewer looked for a named artefact and recorded that it is not located. Where a source sits is a fact about hosting only.
| Criterion | Weight | Mercor | Phenom | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 1 | 1 | — | 2 | 0 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 2 | — | 0 | 1 | — |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 0 | — |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 1 | 1 | — | 0 | 1 | — |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 10 | 8 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 8 | 2 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
Mercor has 16 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 10 with a source URL, 8 documented absences; Phenom has 10 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 8 with a source URL, 2 documented absences.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 26 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 16 for Mercor, across 4 distinct source domains, and 10 for Phenom, across 1 distinct source domain.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Mercor last reviewed
- June 7, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Phenom last reviewed
- May 21, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
HireAIScore scores are editorial research, not legal advice, and no vendor pays for placement, scoring or removal — see the methodology, conflicts policy and terms.
§ Where next